5.17.2021

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




And I still don't think there was.  Background of the accident is here. The families filed a lawsuit in Denton County, but I don't think they recovered anything. (See cause no. 2013-10779-16 with a search here, and see this appellate court setback.)   Highway 380 in Denton County would be expanded to four lanes.

  •  Update on the big "drug bust" in Decatur about three weeks ago.
    • Brooke Melton is still in jail. That's 20 days. 

    • Her husband has bonded out after an attorney posted his bond. (I don't know who that is yet.) 

    • I missed quite the typo last week. 

  • Those Bridgeport numbers for sales tax simply seem wrong. I can't even begin to think of where the money was spent within the city to cause a 130% increase.  

  • This former Dallas prosecutor is only the fourth lawyer to ever lose his law license for withholding evidence that led to guilty verdicts and wrongful incarcerations.  Those guilty of it get away with it all the time. Side note: After working in Dallas, the prosecutor worked in the Denton County D.A.'s office but was fired from it. I don't know why.  He now drives tour buses in Alaska, and still thinks he did nothing wrong. 

  •  "The mother told WFAA her son was sound asleep when the suspect broke in through the back door and kidnapped her son. The mother says surveillance video shows what happened."  That sentence alone causes me to have  lots of questions about the horrible murder of a 4 year old found stabbed to death on a residential street in the 7500 block of Saddleridge in Dallas. An 18 year old was arrested for kidnapping and the only thing we know is that he sometimes "was seen walking in the neighborhood."  It's also curious that the  WFAA story says that the man arrested had a "ankle monitor" on. But the Morning News only references that he had a pending misdemeanor charge for Evading Arrest (and I can't imagine an ankle monitor being ordered for that.)

  • WFAA's color grid for predicted rainfall is screwed up.  If the numbers weren't on this graphic, where do you think that the heaviest rain would fall?  It needs to go from yellow (lightest) to orange to red to purple (heaviest).

  • Of all the videos of the crazy rain in Dallas yesterday afternoon, this one stuck with me. The guy gets out of his car and water can be seen rushing out of the passenger compartment. He then immediately shuts the door to keep the water from escaping.

  • The Colonial golf tournament is next week and you can get an all-inclusive package (food and alcohol) for $475 a day. I think this is new. I don't think this is a bargain. 

  • The suburban Houston tiger was found, and when I saw this story I was sure he was being moved to the Rhome or Bridgeport tiger sanctuaries. Nope, we don't get him. 
  • Scott Baio supporting Ricky Schroder for acting like a jerk to an innocent Costco worker is a pretty good measure of both of them. 

  • Could Israel at least be a little more surgical in their counter-strikes against Hamas so as to not kill 50 children while they do so? 
  • Sam Houston won the Division I Championship yesterday (but we won't mention that South Dakota State's quarterback left with an injury in the first quarter.)

  • Crime wave!

  • Want something to think about all day?: You have three closed doors to choose from. Behind one of them is a new car. Behind the other two is a goat. You choose door #1. The host, who knows where the car is, first opens up door #3 which reveals that a goat. You now have the option to stick with door #1 or switch and choose door #2?  Question: Do you switch because it increases your odds? Amazingly, the answer is yes. Welcome to the "Monty Hall Problem."




at 8:35 AM

5.14.2021

It's Friday -- Let's Get Out of Here

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




The background here is that an In-N-Out Burger had opened in Frisco and people lost their minds. I still remember the video of this girl (still available) as she cried with joy. It was so darned weird. (Unless someone shares her name, she got married a couple of years ago. Here's another fun fact: Did you know that since Jay Leno ran the clip on The Tonight Show that she got her own IMBD page?)

  • The CDC announced yesterday that if you have been fully vaccinated then you no longer need to wear a mask or socially distance. That's as close to an announcement of "It is all over!" that we are ever going to get. 

  • Well, it's technically over for a quarter of us. 

  • This was the horrible case that occurred off Greenville Avenue in Dallas two years ago. The 22 year old had gone out to celebrate her birthday when she was grabbed in a parking lot in the early evening hours.  He was charged with capital murder where he could have received life without parole. Instead he pled guilty to a life sentence to the lesser offense of simple murder which allows him to be eligible for parole after 30 years. He would be 79 at that time if he were to be paroled (which is probably unlikely.) 


  • There was a crazy police chase that ended in Alvarado yesterday. I counted at least 23 cops drawing down on a guy at the end of it.  (Something which seems incredibly disorganized and is a recipe for the whole thing going horribly wrong.)

  • Colonial Pipeline paid $5 million to the hackers to be released from their ransomware.  I'm telling you, payments like this are made all the time. (The Wise County Sheriff's Office got hit with ransomware before and paid up.) 

  • The story isn't particularly noteworthy, but that picture is. I didn't think that looked like Jenna Ryan, but I suppose it is. Edit: Readers don't think it is.


  • Oh, my. 

  • Kim Ogg is the District Attorney in Harris County. Uh, where does one go to "register to be a juror"?

  • This is pretty wild: Last weekend the president of the University of South Carolina at the end of commencement congratulated the students from graduating from the "University of California" (video), and yesterday he resigned because it was discovered he plagiarized a quote in his commencement address. He stole a quote from the famous "Make up your bed" commencement address of  Admiral William McRaven at the University of Texas in 2014. 

  • My 10 year flashback earlier this week referred to Tammie Jo Chaffee who was imprisoned for murder in Wise County. A faithful reader pointed out to me that you can write to her here at WriteAPrisoner.com.
  • It's not particularly exciting, but the Fort Worth Court of Appeal affirmed a conviction for Evading Arrest out of Wise County yesterday where the defendant received 13 years in prison. (Legal nerd stuff: The appellate court, as it will always do, seemed to affirm the case on a theory not even advanced by the State. The issue was whether the jury should have been asked to decide whether the defendant failed to signal which was the basis for his initial detention. The Court said "we don't care" because there was a reasonable suspicion to stop him anyway. I'm not so sure about that.)
  • More legal nerd stuff: President Biden just got the opportunity to appoint someone to the Fifth Circuit which governs Texas.
  • What did I tell you about large warehouses?

  • Watch the reaction of a bunch of girls' college golf teams, including North Texas and Sam Houston, being advised that the Regional event at Baton Rouge was cancelled. That was sorry. (And here is Barstool Sports mocking re-creation of the moment as they try -- for publicity's sake -- to invite the teams to their own tournament.)

  • Time which has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener in her home at Lake Bridgeport: 679 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold



at 8:32 AM

5.13.2021

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




This turned out to be the crazy case of Fred Earl Ingerson, III who was accused of murdering Robyn Richter and Shawna Ferris who were found dead in the parking lot of the Miyako Japanese Restaurant in Granbury, Texas on June 28, 2008. It looked like the jury was hung, but they finally reached a guilty verdict after three days of deliberations. But I wasn't the only one who thought it was a weak case. The Fort Worth Court of Appeals reversed the conviction on insufficient evidence grounds. But then, in an incredibly rare act, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals decided to hear the case and reinstated the verdict in 2018. (One of the Wise County connections was that Wise County Sheriff David Walker was the brother-in-law of one of the victims. He attended the trial. The other is that one of the prosecutors on the case now works in Wise County.)  

  • The Texas open/concealed carry-without-a-license bill has hit a snag. Shockingly, yesterday the House rejected the amendments to the bill made by the Senate. Now it goes to a committee composed of members from both chambers who will try to reach a compromise, and then that comprise must be approved by the full House and Senate. I no longer know what the chances of it passing are. 

  • Video grab bag making the rounds this week:
    • Kid on kid violence that should never happen. Link.

    • Cowboys release insane video about the 2021 schedule. Link.

    • Tell your friends: The video of the lady putting gasoline into plastic bags is actually from 2019. Link.

  • Elon Musk made a weird announcement last night that Tesla would no longer accept Bitcoin for payment. They guy just manipulates the market for his own gain, but somehow it is legal. 
  • Stolen weather forecast. (Disclaimer: It's a Delkus forecast so take it with a grain of salt.) 

  • Day 16 in jail:

  • Bass infusion at Lake Bridgeport:

  • The major six lane bridge on I-40 over the Mississippi outside of Memphis has been shut down and might be so for months. Here is why: 

  • Grab bag of crazy quotes after yesterday's ouster of Rep. Liz Chaney:
    • Mature response from a freshman Republican Congressman.

    • From the loneliness of Mar-a-Lago:

    • This guy spoke up, too. 


    • But the big winner of the day was Rep. Andrew Clyde's (R-GA). This is called defying objective truth: “There was no insurrection, and to call it an insurrection, in my opinion, is a bald-faced lie. Watching the TV footage of those who entered the capitol and walked through statutory hall showed people in an orderly fashion, taking videos and pictures. If you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist video.”

  • Fox News ran a false report last night saying that construction on The Wall had resumed. They retracted it this morning when they figured out it was just the repair of a levee, not the wall, on the border. (Reporter Bill Melugin was also the original source of the fake tampon in a cop's coffee story.)

  • Random things I did not know: A German sub sank an American ship off the coast of Mississippi in 1942 killing 26. This seems like a crazy big deal, but I don't even think it has its own Wikipedia page. 

  • The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced their inductees yesterday, but I don't care because it seems like everyone gets into the Hall of Fame.  One major oversight, however: Wings.


at 8:32 AM
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)